Texas sodomy law still on the books, red neck state

Eight years after the Supreme court ruled it unconstitutional, the sodomy (anti-homosexual) law is still on the books. man Texas is such a red neck, conservative, right wing fucked up place


AUSTIN -- "Homosexual conduct" is still on the books as a crime in Texas, eight years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional.
Although the state's so-called sodomy law cannot be legally enforced, civil rights advocates say it should be removed because it creates a climate favoring bullying and other hate crimes.
But the Austin American-Statesman reports that legislation that would bring state law in line with the U.S. Constitution faces a questionable future in the Legislature, which has been reluctant to provide legal protections to citizens based on sexual orientation.
In 2003, the nation's highest court ruled that Texas could not stop people of the same sex from engaging in sexual activity. Today, the Texas Penal Code still states that it is a Class C misdemeanor to engage in "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex" -- just after a line explaining that the law is unconstitutional.
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, says leaving the law on the books creates the potential for abuse.
Harrington represents two gay men who were kicked out of an El Paso restaurant in 2009 for kissing in public.
The men refused to leave and called the police, believing the restaurant, Chico's Tacos, was out of line with a city law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Instead, an officer told the men it was illegal for the two to kiss in public and that they could be cited for "homosexual conduct."
A department spokesman described the officers involved as relatively inexperienced, and the men were not cited. However, Harrington said the incident is about harassment.

State Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, is sponsoring legislation to strip the language from the books in Texas.
"There is archaic language in our code that is used against our citizens today," said Farrar, whose colleague Rep. Garnet Coleman, also a Houston Democrat, has filed an identical bill.
Gay rights legislation has often faced political hurdles in Texas.
The James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which strengthened penalties for crimes against people based on race, religion and sexual orientation, endured a nearly 10-year fight before becoming law in 2001.
Republicans hold 101 of the 150 seats in the Texas House, a supermajority that allows them to easily control legislation.
Chuck Smith, deputy executive director of Equality Texas, said the state's biggest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lobbying group is not pushing too hard for rewording the penal code, because the makeup of the Criminal Jurisprudence committee makes its passage unlikely.
Farrar said she knows her bill is unlikely to pass, but that she filed it to at least start the conversation.

 

How curiously sad that a geographic area with such beauty is so filled by petty little haters with an exaggerated sense of selfworth. Txbarefooter, you have my sympathey and admiration for living there. It would take more patience and strength than I could muster. Cudo's to you and may the winds of change blow old Texas off the map leaving her beauty behind.

 

This sucks. I was planning on visiting Austin some time in the near future but the thought of possibly being sited for kissing another guy in public or hand-holding freaks me out. If I want to sit on his lap or if he puts his arm around me in a movie theater, I'd be pretty pissed off if we were asked to leave.

 

this is why the term "states rights" makes me nervous . . .

 

I'd be surprised if anything like that happened in Austin. I live in Fort Worth and I doubt that would even happen here, however random people might give you some shit. Anyway, Texas is lame.